CHAPTER XXII

Saying Farewell to the Cabin

"For my part," announced Polly O'Neill, "I am not so heart-broken as I expected at having to say farewell to Sunrise cabin. It is so different for us all, with the Princess not here and having to think of her back home in their big house with only her mother and one little maid of all work. To think that I used to tell the Princess I thought she ought to be poor a little while just to find out what it felt like! I could cry my eyes out now when I realize that it has actually come true."

It was the May meeting of the Sunrise Council Fire and because it was to be the last meeting for some time which might be held on their old camping grounds, the girls and their guardian had decided that it should take place outdoors and that at the close of their regular program there should be, a general talk over the history of the past year.

Esther rose quietly at this speech of Polly's, partly because she seemed to wish to find relief in action and then because the May night was cold, and put several fresh pine logs on their already glowing fire.

"You must not think I am ungrateful, Rose dear," Polly continued. "This winter has been to me the most wonderful one, sometimes I think the turning point in my whole life, but if Betty is going to be trying to take boarders in that big Ashton house to support herself and her mother and let Dick finish his medical studies, why I think Mollie and mother and I had better be back in our own tiny cottage to give her our valuable advice."

"But Betty won't be keeping boarders herself, will she? I thought it was Mrs. Ashton who was to look after things with Betty to help," Nan Graham spoke in a kind of awed tone. "Still it wouldn't seem very nice of us to keep on living here in our cabin, which Betty did a great deal more toward building than the rest of us, if she were not here to share it."

Mollie shook her head decidedly, so that the feathers of her Indian head-dress made fantastic small shadows on the ground. "I don't think that would matter in the least and certainly not to Betty," she said in her sensible, far-seeing fashion. "Betty would love to think of our being here and she would come and visit us whenever it were possible, but circumstances seem to have changed for all of us. Here is mother coming home from Ireland and Polly and I will want to keep house for her and look after things while she is at work just as we have always done, and then Mrs. Meade says she isn't willing for Eleanor to be away from her any longer, and Nan feels she ought to go home and help her mother with the younger children, and Esther going away after a while to New York to study. Dear me, what changes a few months can bring! I am glad they have not brought such big ones to us, Polly."

Sylvia Wharton had been in the act of wrapping a white woolen shawl about the small Faith, who was cuddled close to Rose Dyer, but now she stopped and stared hard at Mollie and then at Polly with an apparently wooden expression of face.

"What makes you feel things won't be different for you and that your mother will go back to work?" she stammered, feeling their guardian give a little warning tug at her dress but unable to change the form of her question once it had taken a start in that way in her mind.

However, both the sisters only laughed, Polly exclaiming in an amused tone: "Of course we don't know anything definitely, oh Sylvia, in this world of surprises, but merely that present indications point the way Mollie has just mentioned." Fortunately, Polly, who was usually quick as a flash to follow up any suggestion, had her mind on other than her own affairs to-night.

"Esther," she continued the next moment, "this is a kind of confessional to-night, or at least it may be if we girls decide that we are willing to confide in one another (autobiography is so much more interesting than history anyhow), so I wonder if you would mind telling us why you changed your mind so suddenly about going away from Woodford to study. At first you said nothing in the world would persuade you to go and then all of a sudden, after Betty's misfortune, when it looked as though you might be a help to her, you determined to leave. Don't answer me if you don't like, Esther, I know you have a perfectly good reason. Of course _I_ change my mind without a reason, but you don't."

Esther now felt that the eyes of all the members of the Camp Fire circle were fixed upon her and that many of them held the same question that Polly had just so frankly asked.

For a moment she hesitated, looking a little appealingly at Miss McMurtry and then at Rose Dyer. Rose nodded her head.

"I would tell just what I felt, Esther, as far as you can," Rose recommended. "It is only fair to you that Betty's dearest friends should understand your position, even though you would rather that Betty herself should not know. I feel you can trust them to keep your secret."

Esther wound the seven strings of honor beads into a single chain before she spoke. "It sounds rather absurd of me and pretentious I know," she began slowly; "of course I have a great many reasons in my mind why I feel it best for me to go away from Woodford right now and the most important one I cannot tell, but there is another which perhaps I have the right to let you try to understand. I am not deserting Betty just when she seems to need me most; it is because Betty now is poor and some day I may be able to help her if I do go away and succeed with my music that I am willing to go. You see Betty has done such a lot for me and has wanted to do so much more and--and--" Esther could not continue with her confession, but it was hardly necessary, for rising from her place Polly marched solemnly around their circle and sitting down by Esther put her arm about her neck.

"I understand you perfectly now, Esther, though I want you to believe that no one of us has ever doubted you. You are too unselfish and too unworldly to care to make a big success in the world with your talent if it is only for yourself, but the thought that maybe you can some day bring back wealth and happiness again to the Princess makes most any effort worth while?"

Esther bowed her head, too full of emotion to answer Polly's question in words.

"I supposed I cared for Betty a lot, I have known her so much longer than you have," Polly went on thoughtfully, "but I don't half love her as you do, Esther, even in this little while. I suppose it is because you haven't any relatives of your own and your father is still so new to you. But didn't you have a baby brother or some one long years ago----?"

Polly's remark was never finished because Miss Dyer now got up quickly. Because the evenings were so cool the May Council Fire had started early and though it was well nigh over, there was still a faint reflection of daylight.

"I thought I heard the wheels of a wagon several moments ago," she explained, "and now I think I can see Dr. Barton's buggy being driven this way. I wonder what in the world he can want with us at this time of the evening? Polly, will you come back to the cabin with me to see."

The Council Fire was being held at no great distance from the Sunrise cabin, but perhaps it was Rose Dyer's purpose at this moment to separate Polly and Esther.

Of course Polly followed with entire willingness, but a few feet from their door, seeing Dr. Barton's buggy draw nearer and that it held two occupants instead of one, her face crimsoned and she bit her lips to control her vexation. She was returning to join the girls when Dr. Barton's voice called after her: "Don't go away, Miss O'Neill, please, our call is upon your sister and you. I was driving through the woods and found Mr. Webster with a telegram which had been telephoned to the farm and which he was bringing out to you and I offered to give him a lift."

Although neither of the two young men had received any invitation to alight, they both got out of the buggy and both wearing somewhat crestfallen expressions, stood gazing at the two young women.

"I will call Mollie," Polly declared stiffly, drawing back from Billy's hand which held a square of paper in it.

"You need not speak to me, Miss O'Neill, simply because I happen to be your messenger boy," the young man said as haughtily as Polly could have spoken. "And you need not feel any contamination at accepting this message from me. The telegram was telephoned out to our farm and my mother wrote it down, so I haven't the faintest idea what the paper contains."

Without showing any further signs of recognizing the speaker, Polly reached for the paper, but the next instant her frightened cry for Mollie brought her sister, Sylvia Wharton, and half a dozen other persons to her side. "I must have read it wrong, it is so dark, or your mother must have made some mistake!" Polly cried, forgetting her policy of silence in her agitation. And then standing with a white face and clenched teeth she watched Mollie read the message.

Mollie did not betray any great grief or anger, only a considerable amount of surprise, so that Polly for an instant believed her own eyes must have deceived her.

"Why, I can't quite understand it," Mollie said aloud, seeing the puzzled group of faces around her. "Mother telegraphs that she and Mr. Wharton, Sylvia's father, have been engaged to be married for the past few months and that she was coming home to tell us about it and to ask us if we were willing, but something has happened or else Mr. Wharton has just persuaded her, for they are married already and are sailing for home to-morrow. Mother says she is very happy and hopes we will forgive her and be almost as overjoyed as she is in coming home to us. At least that is what I think the cablegram means. Billy was mistaken in thinking it a telegram. How do you feel, Polly dear? I am too dazed to take it all in."

"I feel," said Polly, with a return to her old passionate, uncontrolled manner, "that I shall never be happy again as long as I live." And then observing a slow, hurt look in Sylvia Wharton's usually unmoved face, she turned for an instant toward her. "I don't mean to hurt your feelings, Sylvia, or to say anything against your father, but it just isn't possible for you to understand what this means to me." And with this thoroughly Polly-like point of view she ran away and hid herself inside the cabin.

Billy Webster walked off with Mollie and the other Camp Fire girls to talk things over, giving Dr. Barton a chance to linger for a few moments with Rose Dyer.

"I don't know why you seem so offended with me these days, Miss Rose," that young man was soon saying in rather an humble voice for so stern and upright a judge of other people's duties, "but may I say that I think your work among the Camp Fire girls this winter has been quite wonderful and that I never dreamed you could or would be interested in anything outside of society? Oh, Rose----"

"Rose of the World," Rose Dyer finished in a slightly mocking tone, which did not show whether or not she had forgiven the young man's former opinion of her.

However, he _was_ obstinate and so would not be interrupted. "Oh, Rose of a Thousand Leaves," he ended for himself.